6 Dezember 2012

Greening the Future:

Photautotrophic Cyanobacteria as new Superproducers of Cyanophycin

The amino acid polymer cyanophycin could serve as a new and sustainable feedstock for so far petroleum-based plastics or polyaspartic acid.

Cyanophycin is produced naturally as nitrogen storage mainly by cyanobacteria, but in rather low amounts of maximally 3 percent of cell dry mass. Here we present for the first time cyanobacteria that are able to produce large quantities of cyanophycin.